Legal and General is selling the London headquarters of one of the world’s oldest and most exclusive banks — just two months after acquiring its Strand offices in a £550m property portfolio deal.
The sale of the Coutts & Co building at 440 Strand, is the first single lot to be sold off from the 55 properties the financial services company bought from Telereal Trillium in March. It is inviting offers in excess of £168.7m for the Grade II listed building.
In a statement announcing the sale, Legal and General said: “In order to meet the scale of investment required to purchase this rare portfolio on behalf of its annuity business, L & G Retirement, it used combined investment from its shareholder funds, L & G Capital, on behalf of whom this asset is now being returned to the market.”
At the time of the March sale the Coutts headquarters was individually valued at £150m. The 180,480sq ft of offices are let to the Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc — which backed the sale — on assignment from Coutts & Co, for the next 23 years until December, 2037, and include 138,290sq ft of Grade A space and ancillary banking facilities. Twenty-two retail tenants occupy the 42,190sq ft of ground floor and concourse retail and restaurant space.
Founded in 1692, Coutts is one of the world’s oldest banks and is wholly owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, which acquired the Coutts business when it purchased NatWest in 2000. Coutts handles some of the world’s most prestigious accounts, among them those of The Queen and the majority of the Royal Family.
The original building was designed by Regency architect John Nash and constructed in the 1830s as part of the London “improvements” scheme. It was completely renovated in the 1970s and opened by the Queen in 1978.
One of Britain’s largest real estate sell-offs, the Telereal Trillium portfolio attracted interest from a blend of annuity funds, overseas private families and sovereign wealth funds. The majority of its sites were on long-lets to RBS with average unexpired lease terms of more than 22 years and which, between them, produce an annual income of around £28.5m.
At least 45 per cent of the packages income was generated by London properties, which included a Grade II listed five-storey office building in Mayfair occupied by NatWest, the 43,500sq ft headquarters of Drummonds Bank at 49 Charing Cross, the RBS-owned bank Child & Co which has its 17,223sq ft City of London offices at 1 Fleet Street, and two other properties at 63-65 Piccadilly and 97 New Bond Street.
At the time of the deal Legal and General’s director of investment and development, Gordon Aitchison, said: “This is one of the largest acquisitions to be successfully undertaken by a UK fund in recent years. Securing this portfolio of high profile assets in a single transaction demonstrates the depth and breadth of L & G’s investment and principal platform, including our extensive transactional capabilities.”
Previous Post
Parkgate Scheme finally opens in Solihull
